The set of optical constants of germanium reported by Marton and Toots, from 8 to 25 eV, have been assessed and found to be internally consistent to within ±5%. An extension of thenandkvalues up to photon energy of 100 eV using Hunter'skvalues also has been studied. The analysis consisted of an internal consistency check by applying the Kronig‐Kramers dispersion relations to the optical constants and an evaluation and study of the optical and electron oscillator‐strength distributions. From an application of the general sum rules to the oscillator‐strength distribution, the computed effective number of electrons per germanium atom are in general agreement with an extrapolation of Manson and Cooper's calculation.